Boulder homeless shelter reconvenes neighborhood group

Shelter studying bus use by clients to gauge impact

A group of homeless people ride the free bus to the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless on Thursday.
(
JEREMY PAPASSO
)

The Boulder Shelter for the Homeless has reconvened a neighborhood group in an effort to improve communication with nearby residents and address some of its impacts.

Among other issues, the shelter is looking at how and when its clients use the Skip bus on Broadway to see if there are conflicts or problems with commuters and schoolchildren.

That young children riding the bus to school had been harassed or had seen objectionable behavior was one of many complaints raised by north Boulder residents when they spoke out against plans by Boulder Housing Partners to build a "housing first" apartment complex for chronically homeless people next to the shelter.

Neighborhood residents who opposed the plan said their community already bears too much of the burden of Boulder's homeless population.

In the aftermath of that debate, city officials asked the shelter to reach out to neighbors. The shelter's plan of operations calls for regular consultation with an advisory group of neighborhood residents, but the previous group had stopped meeting.

A new group was put together from shelter staff and board members and representatives of the Dakota Ridge, Northbriar Estates and Holiday neighborhoods, as well as a representative of the north Boulder business community.

"We've been working on trying to understand what the problems are and finding solutions to whatever those problems are," said Greg Harms, the shelter's executive director.

Advertisement

Beth Silverman, who manages several homeowners' associations in Dakota Ridge and serves on the neighborhood group, said communication is much better between the shelter and neighborhoods now, and she also sees a greater police presence after meetings among police officers, sheriff's deputies and the Dakota Ridge Master Association.

"I see a presence there that I haven't seen in years, and it's really made a difference," she said.

Harms said the shelter also has changed its "conditions of stay" to require that clients respect the neighborhood.

In response to concerns about schoolchildren on the bus, a shelter employee spent time on the Skip bus in May and is riding the bus again this fall to observe and document how shelter clients use the bus and interact with other riders, Harms said.

The shelter closes at 8 a.m. for the day and doesn't re-open to clients until 5 p.m. Some neighbors had suggested the shelter should change the time at which clients leave and arrive so there would be less interaction with children.

The shelter provides a free bus downtown through Via special transit in the morning and then another bus back in the afternoon. Harms said most shelter clients don't take the Skip, which costs money.

"What we're doing with the bus surveying is trying to determine if that's an issue," Harms said. "Would it make any difference if we changed the time that we let out? We're trying to collect data before we make policy changes."

Gail Promboin, a member of the North Boulder Alliance, which organized in opposition to the Boulder Housing Partners project, said she has concerns that the group was picked by shelter administration rather than by residents and that there hasn't been enough communication between group members and other neighborhood residents.

Promboin said many shelter clients don't cause problems, but people camp in open space nearby in order to be close to morning services, like showers.

And she sees many people who appear homeless on the Skip, she said.

"Many of them are well behaved," she said. "Some of them are not. If I were (Harms), I would ask the parents when they don't want his clients on the bus, whether they observe something wrong or not."

Harms said the neighborhood group is meant to be a conduit for that type of information. The contact information for group members is available at the shelter's website, bouldershelter.org.

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story